Saturday, October 4, 2008

ABC's

Jae is growing and getting so smart. This morning he was sitting on the couch and doodling on a pad, when he exclaims, "Mama, I wrote a J!" So I look on his paper and sure enough, there is the letter J on the paper. I was so excited. This has been the first letter I've seen that he's written on his own (do you see it??).

We have been doing a lot of spelling exercises with him lately and he definitely knows his letters. Today we spelled Mommy, Daddy, Jae, Hannah, Auntie Barbara, Auntie Stacey, Auntie Anna, Uncle Jake, Uncle Eric, Bennigan, and Charlie and he knew all the letters. The only hesitation was him trying to read my writing! LOL.

He also comments on objects that he sees when we are driving in the car. Once again, my baby is growing up!

Thursday, October 2, 2008

It was so strange, I had to do a double take!

This happened a couple of weeks ago, but I just had to share this bizarre story with you.

We were spending the weekend at my parents to celebrate my mom's birthday, so my brother and his kids were there and my friend Stephanie was there as well. My parents were at work, so they didn't have the opportunity to witness something so bizarre!

It was Sunday morning and everyone (except my parents) were in the living room watching football and hanging out with the kids, when I thought I heard a voice in the other room. At first I thought it was one of my mom's friends just walking through the door like they have done or someone had left the tv on upstairs, so I go to investigate. I open the front door to see if anyone is outside and it's clear, but I still hear the voice. So I turn around and look up the stairs and see a little girl standing at the top of the stairs! I was so shocked that I had to do a double take! At first I thought I was seeing things, but it was a real girl! I called for my brother and asked him if he knew who she was and I believe he was in as much shock as I was.

My first thought was "how the hell did she get in here and who is she?" Were my parents hiding a blond girl in the house and not telling us about it??? This whole time, she's repeating the name Josephine. So I go upstairs and ask her what she's doing here and she still keeps repeating "Josephine". So I ask her what her name is and she said "Allison", so I ask her where her parents are and she starts saying Josephine again. While I'm doing this, Bill and my brother are outside looking for a parent who might be looking for their lost child, but it's a very quiet Sunday and no one is out.

Meanwhile, I finally get her downstairs and outside and my brother and Bill start knocking on doors to see who she belongs to. They end up finding a house that knows her and then points to the house next door. They knock on the door and sure enough, it's her house. She ended up living 4 houses down from my parents.

I'm just surprised that no one was looking for her. She was a special needs child so that proved to be a little difficult in the communication part, but she was not scared at all to be in our house with strangers, or at least she didn't show it.

Lesson here is that you should always keep your front door locked, you never know who may walk through it!

Can we fix it? Yes we can!

Bob the Builder is in town!

For those of you who aren't familiar, Bob the Builder is a children's television character. Bob appears as a construction contractor specializing in masonry in a animated program with his colleague Wendy, various neighbours and friends, and their gang of vehicles and equipment (all made of clay). The show is broadcast on PBS.

In each episode, Bob and his gang help with renovations, construction, and repairs and with other projects as needed. The show emphasizes reuse, reduce, and recyle, conflict resolution, co-operation, socialization and various learning skills. Bob's catchphrase is "Can we fix it?", to which the other characters respond with "Yes we can!" (Thank you wikipedia).

The exhibit is pretty fun. There are several stations where kids can build/construct things, kids can go into Bob's trailer, as well as Wendy's trailer, and they've got some of the construction vehicles (scoop, lofty, rolly) that you can sit in and take some cute pics.

Jae had a great time playing at all the stations they had. We were also able to go outside and sit on the real construction trucks!














Anywho..Bob is shacking up at the Portland Children's Museum until January, so if you are interested, you should stop and say hello.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The Kite Runner

I have not had the pleasure of reading this book, but I rented the movie over the weekend and I loved it. I've heard all the buzz about the book and have friends that have read it and liked it, but being that I haven't picked up a book since January (unless it relates to children), I knew I wasn't going to be picking up this one anytime soon.

Most know that I'm pretty emotional, heck, I cry during Hallmark commercials for goodness sake! So you can only imagine how the tears were falling during this movie. I was literally crying from beginning to end.

I'm usually not a fan of 'book to movie' movies just because pieces are always missing and I'm going to assume the same with this movie. But I would recommend this movie. And it's not even about 'having to be in the mood' to watch this movie. Yes, it's sad, but it's a great story. There are subtitles, but how weird would it be if it was all in English? The viewer would have missed the essence of the movie. Heck, Bill watched the movie and he's not a subtitle man at all! I think he was pleasantly pleased.

4 stars (out of 5)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Mmmmm...



















Gee, do you think he liked it?



Sole Support for Parkinson's







Most of you know that supporting Parkinson's is a cause that is close to the hearts of my family. September 14th was the annual Sole Support for Parkinson's walk at the Willamette Park in Portland and the family put on their tenni-runners to to a little walking. We have participated in this event for several years now and it's a great way to raise awareness and money to help find a cure for this debilitating disease.

The family had a great time and met friends of my M-I-L. We definitely felt the comraderie amongst all the families that were participating.
If you would like to learn more about Parkinson's, please go to http://www.parkinsonsresources.org/

Jae and Hannah are big supporters!

Sitting Pretty

I just had to post some pictures of Hannah. We were having a mom and daughter morning while the boys were at swimming and decided to take some pictures.








She's like a deer in headlights









Right after bath time